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> All companies push an agenda all the time, and their agenda always is: market dominance, profitability, monopoly and rent extraction, rinse and repeat into ot

> All companies push an agenda all the time, and their agenda always is: market dominance, profitability, monopoly and rent extraction, rinse and repeat into other markets, power maximization for their owners and executives. I'll bear that in mind the next time I'm getting a haircut. How do you think Bob's Barbers is going to achieve all of that?

toomuchtodo 1y ago
It was a sloppy statement, but is broadly speaking, true. For overwhelming citations, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=thebignewsletter.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (HN Search of posts from Matt Stoller's BIG Newsletter, which focuses on corporate monopolies and power in the US). https://www.thebignewsletter.com/about https://www.thebignewsletter.com/about > The Problem: America is in a monopoly crisis. A monopoly is, at its core, a private government that sets the terms, services, and wages in a market, like how Mark Zuckerberg structures discourse in social networking. Every monopoly is a mini-dictatorship over a market. And today, there are monopolies everywhere. They are in big markets, like search engines, medicine, cable, and shipping. They are also in small ones, like mail sorting software and cheerleading. Over 75% of American industries are more consolidated today than they were decades ago. > Unregulated monopolies cause a lot of problems. They raise prices, lower wages, and move money from rural areas to a few gilded cities. Dominant firms don’t focus on competing, they focus on corrupting our politics to protect their market power. Monopolies are also brittle, and tend to put all their eggs in one basket, which results in shortages. There is a reason everyone hates monopolies, and why we’ve hated them for hundreds of years. https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2021/09/17/graph-theory-on-food-monopolies/ https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2021/09/17/graph-theory-o... (Food consolidation) https://followthemoney.com/infographic-the-u-s-media-is-controlled-by-just-six-corporations/ https://followthemoney.com/infographic-the-u-s-media-is-cont... (Media consolidation) https://www.kearney.com/industry/energy/article/how-utilities-are-using-consolidation-to-attract-data-centers https://www.kearney.com/industry/energy/article/how-utilitie... (US electric utilities) https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2024/01/Wilson-Ready-for-PUBLISH.pdf https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6... [pdf] (Agriculture consolidation) https://www.visualcapitalist.com/interactive-major-tech-acquisitions/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/interactive-major-tech-acqu... (Big Tech consolidation)
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  That geographic concentration is a real thing. I think part of the Mozilla problem is that they are based in San Francisco which puts them in touch with people from Facebook and Google and OpenAI every frickin' day and they are just so seeped in the FOMO Dilemma [1] that they can't hear the objection to NFT and AI features that users, particularly Firefox users, hate. [2] I'd really like to see Mozilla move anywhere but the bay area, whether that is Dublin or Denver. When you aren't hanging out with "big tech" people at lunch and after work and when you have to get in a frickin' airplane to meet with those people you might start to "think different" and get some empathy for users and produce a better product and be a viable business as opposed to another out-of-touch and unaccountable NGO. [1] Clayton Christensen pointed out in The Innovator's Dilemma that companies like Kodak and Xerox die because they are focused on the needs of their current customers who could care less about the new shiny that can't satisfy their needs now but will be superior in say 15 years. Now we have The FOMO Dilemma which is best illustrated by Windows 8 which went in a bold direction (tabletization) that users were completely indifferent to: firms now introduce things that their existing customers hate because they read The Innovator's Dilemma and don't want to wind up like Xerox. [2] we use Firefox because we hate that corporate garbage.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    My two cents is Mozilla should be in a European tech hub, with some component of their funding coming from the EU, where the EU's belief in regulation and nation state efforts to protect humans exceeds that of the US.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      It's not a popular opinion but if I was the EU I would do the following: (1) Fully fund Firefox or an alternative browser (with a 100% open source commitment and verifiable builds so we know the people who get ideas like chatcontrol can't slip something bad in) (2) Pass a law to the effect: "Violate DNT and the c-suite goes to jail and the company pays 200% of yearly revenue" (3) same for having a cookie banner
red-iron-pine 1y ago
Bob the Barber ain't doin shit but that's mostly because he's got a room temperature IQ and is already struggling with taxes and biz-dev. he can do a mean fade, tho. some weeks if its slow he may struggle to make his rent for his apartment; he doesn't have time or capacity to engage in serious rent-seeking behavior. but hair cut chains like Supercuts are absolutely engaging in shady behavior all the time, like games with how solons rent chairs or employing questionably legal trafficked workers. and FYI turns out that Supercuts a wholly owned subsidiary of the Regis Corporation, who absolutely acquires other companies and plays all sorts of shady corporate games, including branching into other markets and monopoly efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_Corporation
- pstuart 1y ago
  I would subscribe to your newsletter ;-)
chipsrafferty 1y ago
The statement, more refined, would clarify, "publicly traded companies".

toomuchtodo 1y ago

It was a sloppy statement, but is broadly speaking, true. For overwhelming citations, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=thebignewsletter.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (HN Search of posts from Matt Stoller's BIG Newsletter, which focuses on corporate monopolies and power in the US). https://www.thebignewsletter.com/about https://www.thebignewsletter.com/about > The Problem: America is in a monopoly crisis. A monopoly is, at its core, a private government that sets the terms, services, and wages in a market, like how Mark Zuckerberg structures discourse in social networking. Every monopoly is a mini-dictatorship over a market. And today, there are monopolies everywhere. They are in big markets, like search engines, medicine, cable, and shipping. They are also in small ones, like mail sorting software and cheerleading. Over 75% of American industries are more consolidated today than they were decades ago. > Unregulated monopolies cause a lot of problems. They raise prices, lower wages, and move money from rural areas to a few gilded cities. Dominant firms don’t focus on competing, they focus on corrupting our politics to protect their market power. Monopolies are also brittle, and tend to put all their eggs in one basket, which results in shortages. There is a reason everyone hates monopolies, and why we’ve hated them for hundreds of years. https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2021/09/17/graph-theory-on-food-monopolies/ https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2021/09/17/graph-theory-o... (Food consolidation) https://followthemoney.com/infographic-the-u-s-media-is-controlled-by-just-six-corporations/ https://followthemoney.com/infographic-the-u-s-media-is-cont... (Media consolidation) https://www.kearney.com/industry/energy/article/how-utilities-are-using-consolidation-to-attract-data-centers https://www.kearney.com/industry/energy/article/how-utilitie... (US electric utilities) https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2024/01/Wilson-Ready-for-PUBLISH.pdf https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6... [pdf] (Agriculture consolidation) https://www.visualcapitalist.com/interactive-major-tech-acquisitions/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/interactive-major-tech-acqu... (Big Tech consolidation)

PaulHoule 1y ago
That geographic concentration is a real thing. I think part of the Mozilla problem is that they are based in San Francisco which puts them in touch with people from Facebook and Google and OpenAI every frickin' day and they are just so seeped in the FOMO Dilemma [1] that they can't hear the objection to NFT and AI features that users, particularly Firefox users, hate. [2] I'd really like to see Mozilla move anywhere but the bay area, whether that is Dublin or Denver. When you aren't hanging out with "big tech" people at lunch and after work and when you have to get in a frickin' airplane to meet with those people you might start to "think different" and get some empathy for users and produce a better product and be a viable business as opposed to another out-of-touch and unaccountable NGO. [1] Clayton Christensen pointed out in The Innovator's Dilemma that companies like Kodak and Xerox die because they are focused on the needs of their current customers who could care less about the new shiny that can't satisfy their needs now but will be superior in say 15 years. Now we have The FOMO Dilemma which is best illustrated by Windows 8 which went in a bold direction (tabletization) that users were completely indifferent to: firms now introduce things that their existing customers hate because they read The Innovator's Dilemma and don't want to wind up like Xerox. [2] we use Firefox because we hate that corporate garbage.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  My two cents is Mozilla should be in a European tech hub, with some component of their funding coming from the EU, where the EU's belief in regulation and nation state efforts to protect humans exceeds that of the US.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    It's not a popular opinion but if I was the EU I would do the following: (1) Fully fund Firefox or an alternative browser (with a 100% open source commitment and verifiable builds so we know the people who get ideas like chatcontrol can't slip something bad in) (2) Pass a law to the effect: "Violate DNT and the c-suite goes to jail and the company pays 200% of yearly revenue" (3) same for having a cookie banner

red-iron-pine 1y ago

Bob the Barber ain't doin shit but that's mostly because he's got a room temperature IQ and is already struggling with taxes and biz-dev. he can do a mean fade, tho. some weeks if its slow he may struggle to make his rent for his apartment; he doesn't have time or capacity to engage in serious rent-seeking behavior. but hair cut chains like Supercuts are absolutely engaging in shady behavior all the time, like games with how solons rent chairs or employing questionably legal trafficked workers. and FYI turns out that Supercuts a wholly owned subsidiary of the Regis Corporation, who absolutely acquires other companies and plays all sorts of shady corporate games, including branching into other markets and monopoly efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_Corporation

pstuart 1y ago
I would subscribe to your newsletter ;-)

chipsrafferty 1y ago

The statement, more refined, would clarify, "publicly traded companies".